Buffalo Trace Resurrects Its Prohibition-Era Labels for New Annual Collection

What’s old is new again, with Buffalo Trace’s unveiling of a new limited-edition collection comprising some of its oldest labels. Dubbed the Prohibition Collection and slated to be an annual release, this set features expressions that pay tribute to this Kentucky distillery’s rich history during Prohibition.

With the passing of the Volstead Act in January 1920, Prohibition spelled doom for nearly the entire whiskey industry. With the flick of a pen, distillery workers across the U.S. suddenly found themselves out of work. But a fortunate few managed to survive by being granted a Medicinal Whiskey License, which gave certain distilleries permission to legally distill “medicinal whiskey” that could only be purchased by customers bearing a doctor’s prescription. Only six of these permits were issued, and Buffalo Trace, then called the George T. Stagg Distillery, held one of them. The labels in this set all played a crucial role in Stagg’s survival during those trying times. As master distiller Harlen Wheatley put it, “Without them, today there would be no Buffalo Trace, Eagle Rare, or Weller bourbons.”

The collection’s inaugural wave includes five expressions. The first, a cask-strength whiskey named Old Stagg, was inspired by the whiskey that replaced O.F.C. bourbon as the distillery’s flagship label in the final years of Prohibition. Today it lives on as George T. Stagg. The second, Golden Wedding, is a 53.5% ABV rye from Joseph S. Finch Distillery in Pennsylvania, which Stagg helped bottle until the brand fully moved to Canada in the ‘40s and eventually became extinct. The third is a bottled in bonded whiskey called Three Feathers, which started as an unbonded rye in 1812, before eventually transitioning into a bonded whiskey and, afterward, a blend. The fourth is Walnut Hill, a 45% ABV whiskey that Stagg originally bottled for another company. This one’s noteworthy because its production was directly overseen by distillery president Albert Blanton, the same man who would go on to inspire Blanton’s Single Barrel bourbon. The final bottle is Spiritus Frumenti, Latin for “Spirit of the Grain” and a longtime euphemism for generic medicinal whiskey. The other licensed distilleries also produced iterations of Spiritus Frumenti throughout Prohibition, but this one, of course, takes inspiration from George T. Stagg Distillery’s own recipe.

The entire collection is sold as a set of five 375-ml bottles, in a wooden display case. The bottles are labeled and packaged similarly to their original designs from the era, including cartons with rear cut-outs into which doctors would place the prescriptions. The whole package commands a whopping retail price of $1,000 and is set to hit shelves at retailers across the U.S. starting in October.

This first iteration of The Prohibition Collection is in limited quantities, but Buffalo Trace plans to make it an annual release. As for next year’s collection? No details are available yet, so we’ll have to wait and see if any of the distillery’s other defunct Prohibition-era brands make a surprise return from the grave.